Joelene Heathcote

What's between us can't be heard

An outstanding first collection by an important new voice in Canadian poetry, Joelene Heathcote’s What’s between us can’t be heard reveals a poet of depth and skill, capable of a clear-minded restraint in poetry imbued with an exuberant passion.

Joelene Heathcote is a recent graduate from the University of British Columbia with a Masters degree in Fine Arts. Her poetry has been published internationally and is included in the anthologies Breaking the Surface and Mocambo Nights (Ekstasis). She has received numerous literary awards for fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, including: Arc Magazine’s Poem of the Year, the Ray Burrell Award, and This Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt Best New Writer Prize. Profiled by Quill & Quire magazine as “one of the most promising emerging writers,” she recently received the Mocambopo Prize for Poetry, awarded by judge Patrick Lane. She lives in Victoria, B.C.

Joelene Heathcote’s poems are radiant with a lyric sensuality, yet they possess a rare brutal clarity and an intellectual honesty not commonly found in modern poems. A first book of poems by an authentic poet is always cause for celebration and Joelene Heathcote’s memorable first collection What’s between us can’t be heard is certain to resonate in Canadian letters for some time to come.